


The Messed Up Motherfuckers Afterlife Movie Club

by SassySnowperson (DramaticEntrance)



Category: Russian Doll (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Humor, Banter, Canon-typical Cursing, Cigarettes, Drug Use, Figuring Out Life After, Gen, Post-Canon, Relationship Study, Spoilers, aka LOTS, mentions of suicidal ideation, so many spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 10:10:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17806070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticEntrance/pseuds/SassySnowperson
Summary: So Nadia and Alan, after being each other's lifeline to sanity, only hope, saving grace, and one-time fuckbuddies during their own personal apocalypse, decided to try being friends. And yes, they were very different people, but it just so happened that literally saving each others' lives and as a result saving themselves was a pretty good basis for a friendship. Besides, nobody else knew what it felt like to be crushed by a falling air conditioning unit, and that was the sort of thing that really brought two people together.Nadia and Alan watch a movie.





	The Messed Up Motherfuckers Afterlife Movie Club

**Author's Note:**

> I binge-watched the show and then just HAD to write this. 
> 
> Many thanks to [Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome) for the beta!

"You know," Alan said, leaning back against the crisp white futon while Nadia sat next to him, gnawing on the end of her unlit cigarette, "if my purgatory theory was right, this is heaven." 

"Your purgatory theory was shit. I thought I beat that martyr complex out of you." Nadia tapped the back of her hand against his shoulder in a mockery of a slap. "Why would you be punished when Mike got off scot-free?" 

"It wouldn't be so bad, you know, as far as heavens go," Alan said, hanging on to his original point doggedly. 

"God, you sap. This ain't heaven. You know why? If it were heaven, you would let me smoke in your damn apartment." 

* * *

It turned out that being trapped in a seemingly endless resurrection loop was not, in fact, an experience that lent itself well to sharing at parties. Or at doctor's offices. Or at all. 

So Nadia and Alan, after being each other's lifeline to sanity, only hope, saving grace, and one-time fuckbuddies during their own personal apocalypse, decided to try being friends. And yes, they were very different people, but it just so happened that literally saving each others' lives and as a result saving themselves was a pretty good basis for a friendship. Besides, nobody else knew what it felt like to be crushed by a falling air conditioning unit, and that was the sort of thing that really brought two people together.

"I still get iffy around stairs, you know? I've become the sadsack that takes an elevator to the second fuckin' story." 

"We died in an elevator, too." 

"Ah, but I met you in the elevator. The elevator was a net positive. The stairs just had it out for me, the bastards."

The thing about friendship outside of life-and-death (or, in their case, death-and-death) situations is that it took, well, negotiating.

"We could watch a movie." 

"Fuckin' hell, man, that's your best offer?" 

"We could watch a movie and eat ice cream?" 

"You somehow manage to have both the soul of a ninety-year-old librarian curating a collection of good housekeeping tips and the soul of a second-rate child chess prodigy trapped inside that amazingly well-postured body of yours. You're an enigma, Alan. Fine. I'm in, your place." 

"You can't smoke." 

"I can't _not_ smoke."

"So we'll watch a movie at your place. You can't clean my apartment by jumping off of a bridge this time, Nadia. That smoke smell will stay. It seeps into fibers." 

"I'll seep into your fibers." 

"That doesn't make—" 

"And I didn't jump off of any fuckin' bridge. The cat disappeared! I was startled! Under the circumstances, you know, it was a very reasonable reaction. We can't do it at my place, you might start cleaning shit again."

"What if I promise to not clean shit?"

"What if I smoke out the window?" 

"Outside." 

"I'll miss the movie!" 

"We'll pause the movie."

"You're going to have to pause the movie too much, and then you'll get all passive-aggressive at me, and then I'm going to just get aggressive-aggressive at you, which is going to be worse, because I'll be in deep nicotine deprivation, so you should just let me smoke out the window." 

"I'll manage. Have you thought about quitting? I'm going to die of cancer from second-hand smoke, hanging around you." 

"At least you won't die because you jumped off a fuckin' building, you fuckin' cunt." 

And what could Alan do but laugh at that? Nadia joined in, the laughter meant they we're living, so it went on long after it should have ended. 

Eventually, they caught their breath and hashed out the rest of the details. Alan's place, no smoking inside, movie paused to smoke outside, Alan got to pick the movie, Nadia got to pick the ice cream. And the boozy extracurriculars. And the not-boozy extracurriculars.

"Brownies! Now you're getting in the spirit of things!" 

"Yeah," and because Nadia was pissed about the no-smoking thing, she hesitated a good three seconds before explaining, " _special_ brownies." 

"Do they have chocolate chips?" 

Nadia glared at him. "Nobody's that sheltered. Ruth's sister, who is a crazy fundamentalist who lives on a fuckin' boutique chicken ranch in the middle of nowhere and believes in homeschool and doesn't believe in the internet—even _her_ fucking kids know what a special brownie is."

"Is the weed good?" Alan asked, unable to keep hiding his smile. 

"Maxine hooked me up so….who knows? Life's an adventure, eat the fuckin' brownie." 

* * *

Which was how they wound up on Alan's couch, Alan a little more spaced out than usual, Nadia barely hit by the high, more focused on white-knuckling through her eighty-seventh minute without a cigarette. 

Alan blinked slowly, finding that his ceiling was really _interesting_ , in a way he had never appreciated before. "If this were heaven, you wouldn't want to smoke."

"What a shitty heaven. What's next, no strippers? No orgies? No jaywalking? No telling someone else's secrets the biggest gossip in town, because you want the shit to get out but you don't want to be responsible for it?" 

"Your morality is fascinating. Was that in order of severity? Reverse order? I honestly can't tell." 

"The world is chaos and morality is imposed by the patriarchy, so fuck it all. Aren't we supposed to be watching a movie?" 

"Yes!" Alan brightened. "I found a good one!" 

Nadia gestured for him to continue. 

Alan walked over to to his DVD collection (organized by release date, because genres were too vague but just by title felt inadequately themed) and came back holding—

"What kind of sick fucking joke is _that._ "

"It felt thematically appropriate for the Afterlife Movie Club."

Nadia blinked. "Nuh-uh. No. I see what you're doing. You're giving me two objectionable things at once, thinkin', hey, there's no way she's going to have the energy to shut down both of them. But! Little did you know, I am an _endless well_ of negation. I can negate things all day. So, one, we are two people watching movies with each other, it does not need a name, and it really doesn't need a _shitty_ name like the After-fuckin'-life Movie Club—"

"Hurtful." 

"And, two, there is no way in _hell_ that I am watching Groundhog's Day."

"We are not just two people! We have had our lives metaphysically linked. We were intrinsically bound by the universe to connect with each other. It fundamentally changed both of us for the better. You can't tell me that we are just two people watching a movie together." Alan ended his sentence looking at Nadia, passionate and pleading. 

"Fine, we're two messed up motherfuckers watching a movie together. I'm still not watching that piece of shit movie with you. You asking for a panic attack? Pick something better." 

"It's a classic!"

"It's a trigger waiting to happen. You don't need to taunt the bull, Alan! That's one of the things I learned during our learn-and-die fiesta. Sometimes, you can see a bull in the field, and you can just keep your red cape in your backpack as you walk on by. Let the bull be a bull, and you a be a person that is…" Nadia flicked open her fingers, releasing some invisible idea into the world with a flourish. "...not gored by a bull." 

"Good metaphor. Needs a stronger finish." 

"I think I got my point across." 

"Nadia." Alan sat down on the couch, leaning in.

"Oh, god, not with the imploring eyes." 

"You're right." Alan showed no sign of having heard her. "This movie is trouble, just waiting to happen. But it's also a cultural touchstone." 

"I wouldn't go that far." Nadia leaned away from the earnest that was pouring off of him, folding her arms and trying edge her knees up as a barrier. 

"And I really don't want to run into it without you being around. So I figure, lets just get it out of the way here? Please," Alan said, his eyes starting to shine with the passion of repressed emotion, "you're tough enough to handle it, and I feel like I can handle it with you." 

With an explosive exhale, Nadia unfolded, legs thumping to the floor, hands flopping dramatically beside her. "You are fucking weaponized pathos, you know that?" 

"You'll watch the movie with me?" Alan obviously brighted.

Nadia wrinkled her nose, shaking her head back and forth in a way that was less a 'no' and more of a dance to unheard music. As she moved the shake turned into a nod and she reluctantly said, "Yes," managing to draw the word out for a pained second-and-a-half. 

"Yes!" 

"But I'm gonna go smoke first. I have a feeling I'll need it." 

"There will be ice cream waiting for you when you get back in here!" 

* * *

"So what was your thing?" Nadia asked, bowl of cookie dough ice cream on her lap and smelling of fresh cigarette smoke. Onscreen, a disgruntled weatherman wakes up to the dulcet tones of, 'I Got You Babe.'

"My thing?" 

"The thing you couldn't change because it happened too soon. For me, it was that knocking on the bathroom. Bam. Bam. Thumpathumpthumpthump." Nadia held her hands up, pausing, "Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. It wasn't exactly the same, each time, and, once I got over the part where I was certain I was losing my mind, that really irritated me."

"Oh! Toothpaste, for sure." 

"Toothpaste?" 

"Yeah, I'd die, and then I'd wake up and my mouth would be overwhelmingly minty. It became a pretty strong negative association. I use baking soda now." 

"That's the worst thing I've ever heard. If you ever want to get kissed again you're gonna need to get over that." 

"That's what cinnamon gum is for." Alan tapped his front pocket. 

"Look at you! Plannin' on getting lucky tonight?" Nadia leaned close and waggled her eyebrows. "You were a pretty good lay, my pussy wouldn't say no to a repeat performance." 

Alan, using just his index finger against her shoulder, pushed her away. "Stop using sex to try to get out of watching this movie." 

Nadia snapped her fingers overdramatically. 

* * *

A cold wind bit into them as they stood huddled on Alan's fire escape, as Nadia smoked her cigarette like the worst sort of fuck—too fast, no time for pleasure, desperation in the driving seat. 

"We agree that that guy is a jackass, right?" She asked, then took a massive pull that nearly dragged the ember down to her fingers, before she flung the cigarette down and crushed it under her shoe. 

Alan successfully fought the urge to clean his fire escape. "Yeah, he's terrible. He might make Mike look good."

"Nobody can make Mike look good." 

"You fucked Mike." 

"I'd fuck Phil." 

"No!" 

"What? Don't look at me like that. He's morally bankrupt but he'd give you a good fingerfucking as long as you don't let him stick it in you unless you've come once already. He's goal-oriented. Stop. Stop with the judgy face. Life's a nightmare, get some orgasms before you go." 

"Oh, god." Alan blanched. "I slept with you. I should get STD tested."

"Hey!"

"You said that not having a condom wasn't a dealbreaker!" 

"I have _never_ said that in my…" Nadia trailed off, and after a moment's thought, restarted. "I haven't said that in _years_ …"

"Weeks, if we're counting alternate timelines." 

"Aw, fuck. I really did have a deathwish." Nadia glumly considered her cigarette pack. "We didn't fuck in this timeline. You think STDs make it past the death loop?" 

"I'm thinking I really don't want to find out with Surprise Gonorrhea."

* * *

"Were you ever tempted to use your redos to get someone into bed with you?" Nadia asked, as Phil successfully slept his way through the female half of the town. 

"No! I was busy being heartbroken." 

"We all cope in different ways."

Alan swallowed. "I was just trying redo the breakup, over and over again, trying to find some way that I could hurt her enough so she would realize what a terrible mistake she's making." Alan shook his head. "What about you? Game that party of yours?"

"Nah. I couldn't even sleep with Mike twice, once I realized what was going on. It just felt wrong, you know, trying to game someone into bed. Besides, what would I have gotten out of it? A smug sense of superiority that I'd get to know that we fucked and they wouldn't?

"That's terrible, really."

"Kinda rapey." Nadia pursed her lips and nodded sagely. 

"Yeah." Alan stared at the screen, looking uncomfortable. "I don't remember it being this…coercive."

"Well, now we've got an insider perspective. We can judge." Nadia yelled at the screen, "You're basically a rapist, you reeking puddle of piss!"

"Good one." Alan held up his bowl of fudge ripple ice cream, as if in a toast. Nadia clinked her beer bottle against it. 

* * *

Nadia reached forward, pausing the television. "Smoke break," she said, gently. 

Alan didn't respond. 

Onscreen, Phil paused, mid-air, halfway through his most recent attempt in finding a permanent solution to the problem of his temporary immortality. 

She reached forward, nudging him again. "Come on." 

Alan blinked, swallowed, then nodded, following her out to the fire escape. The wind from earlier had died down, leaving a crisp cool night. It was the sort of night that made the city feel bigger, quieter, cleaner. A clarifying sort of night, the iron cold beneath them, the brown brick of the building still reluctant to relinquish the day's warmth. 

Nadia took three long drags off of her cigarette before she turned to him. "You doin' okay?" 

Alan shook his head. 

"Didn't think so." 

They stood in silence for a while longer, before Nadia broke it, holding out the pack. "Cigarette?" 

Alan gave her a half-smile. "No. Thank you. I know how big of a sacrifice that is." 

Nadia shrugged, putting the pack away again. 

Alan swallowed. "I killed myself," he said deliberately, trying out the words. 

"Yep. And so did I, just more…inadvertently. Indirect action." 

"But I'm still here." 

"Also yep."

They stood a little longer, looking out at the city stretched below them. "You still wanna jump?" Nadia asked. 

"I really don't." Alan leaned backward, pressing his body against the building. His fingers dragged along the outside wall. "I can barely recognize the guy that was so heartbroken that he wanted to. But I'm still _me_. What if it comes back?" 

"You know, sad-Alan asked me, 'If I don't jump, do you promise I'll be happy?'" 

Alan sorted. "That sounds like exactly the sort of dumb thing I'd say. Sorry. I assume you told me to fuck off." 

"I did say fuck no." 

"Close enough." Alan leaned back, until the back of his head touched the wall, looking up at the stars through the slats of the fire escape balcony above him. 

"I did promise he wouldn't be alone, though." 

Alan didn't move for a minute, before he blinked slowly and turned to look at Nadia. "You sap." 

"What can I say, man? You bring out my soft melty interior." 

"Do you wish you had been left with that Alan? To that guy, you'd just be a hero." 

"Fuck no! I'd have fucked it up sooner or later, I really can't hide all this,"—Nadia circled her hand around her head and gestured down over her body in a flourish, cigarette smoke leaving a trail as she gestured—"for long. What about you? Wish you had gotten the Nadia that didn't know about your swan dive?"

"No! Definitely not!" Alan shook his head and looked at Nadia. "I mean, I would have stayed in your life. No matter what. But you wouldn't have _known_." Alan closed his eyes. "I almost cried, when I stopped long enough to realize you were wearing a different shirt. That I had gotten my Nadia back. Not that you're mine! I wouldn't try to claim you or anything—" 

"'S cool. I know the feeling. I've never been so happy to see a dumb scarf. I wonder if deathwish-Nadia and sad-Alan are out there together?"

"I think we took care of them," Alan said. "I think they're back in our past, where they belong." 

They stood in silence a little longer, no soundtrack but the city around them. 

"You wanna go finish the movie?" Nadia asked, reluctantly. 

"No." 

Nadia gave a hefty sigh of relief. 

Silence reigned a little longer, before she abruptly held out her cigarette. "Hold this." 

"I'm not going to—" 

"I know. Just hold it. I'm going to go back inside and get your ice cream, and I wouldn't want my cancer-stick to seep into your fibers." 

Alan reached out and grabbed the cigarette. A minute later, Nadia traded him for his bowl of fudge-ripple. 

"Thanks," Alan said. 

Nadia sat down, legs dangling off the edge of the fire escape. She leaned back until she was laying down across the narrow ledge, her face ending up near Alan's feet. He smiled down at her. 

After a minute, he crouched, before slowly and deliberately sitting down next to her her head. "You won't be alone either, you know?" 

"Yeah. I know." Nadia took a drag off the cigarette, and graciously turned her head so she didn't exhale right into Alan's face. "I'm not gonna stop smoking, but I might try to cut back. A bit." 

"I was thinking…maybe you could introduce me to Ruth again? I might be willing to try therapy. With her." 

"Look at us, all full of self-improvement and plans for the future."

"Feels good." 

"I guess. Speaking of plans for the future, next time, I'm picking the fucking movie." 

"Fair enough. Thanks for getting me through this one."

"Hey, what else is the Messed Up Motherfuckers Afterlife Movie Club for?" 

He smiled at her; she smiled at him. They sat together, full of ice cream and cigarette smoke, not alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I've wandered into this fandom and I have no idea what to do with myself now, so if you want to keep me company, [I'm on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sassysnowperson)
> 
> Or yell in comments! I love it when people yell in comments. I tend to yell back.
> 
>  [If you enjoyed it, here's a fancy graphic to reblog!](https://sassysnowperson.tumblr.com/post/182838347396/the-messed-up-motherfuckers-afterlife-movie-club)


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